Levee breaks, but city isn’t especially concerned

· This quote, from a city official: "This is a unique situation, obviously. You’ve got a water line that’s running near the levee, and so you’ve got a leak, and that’s pretty unique and rare." If the levee can’t hold during a leak from a water line, why should we expect it to hold during a major rainstorm?

· That this was the third levee breach in recent weeks, and that we didn’t hear about any of them?

· That Channel 8 broke the story yesterday, and that Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper didn’t get a story published until 10:30 this morning? (That’s Channel 8’s video, after the jump — nice gash in the leveee.)

· That The News’ city hall reporter, Rudy Bush, whose byline is on the story, probably didn’t have a whole lot to do with it. The story reads like it was written and edited by the bosses who have slanted the paper’s Trinity coverage for the past couple of years. The toll road, which is the only reason anyone cares about this, isn’t mentioned until the ninth paragraph of a 12-paragraph story.

One more time, though I doubt this will change any attitudes downtown: The levee isn’t safe. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says so. It’s leaking. What more do you need before you’ll accept that it isn’t safe?

WANT MORE?Click to sign up for the Advocate's weekly news digest and be the first to know what’s happening in Oak Cliff.